RV Lifestyle Becoming a Chinese Dream

The recreational vehicle lifestyle is gaining a die-hard fan-base in China.

Potential buyers at an RV exhibition in China, 2011 (Photo credit: from www.rvchina.cn)

The American dream of living on the open road, seeing the country on your own set of wheels, and getting away from the hustle and bustle of the city is also becoming a Chinese dream.

Granted, China remains behind even its much smaller neighbors South Korea and Japan in RV numbers, but it is quickly catching up, reports International Business Times.

In 2001, there was only one single, lonely RV in the entire country. By 2010, there were 900 on the road. By the end of 2012, there are expected to be 6,000.

That’s not far from South Korea’s 10,000 RVs, but still way behind Japan’s 78,000. The latter country currently has 1,350 RV-accessible camping locations. China only has 100 existing—and difficult to access—spots, mostly centered around Beijing and other major cities.

The grand king of the RV lifestyle, the U.S., has almost 9 million on the road.

Skeptics may pose a few questions. Where do you find parking for an RV in a Chinese city? Can Chinese roads even accommodate them? Do the Chinese actually camp?

Those questions drive at two critical points: the country’s lack of infrastructure for accommodating large motor vehicles and outdoor vacationing; and whether Chinese culture itself is amenable to such activities.

But if China is good at anything, it’s building new infrastructure. Culture, meanwhile, is itself shifting as middle and upper class citizens become suffocated within the confines of ever-enlarging urban areas. They now have the money and an eagerness to spend it on the outdoors after suffering from downtown pollution without the chance to leave it behind.

Major cities in China are now eager to provide those opportunities to get away. The Shanghai Tourism Administration recently said it had plans to build 20 new RV campgrounds around the city. Many will be placed near suburban and rural areas, while some will be built near Shanghai’s Disneyland.

The entire Yangtze Delta region is expected to get 400-500 new locations by 2020.

The government predicts that the RV tour market could be worth 10 billion yuan by 2020, or about $1.6 billion. By that time there could be 3 to 6 million consumers shopping for RVs in the Delta area alone.

Chinese companies are eager to market their own towable and motorized designs against famed Western makers like Winnebago.

Great Wall's trailer attachments have been a big hit in China, coupled with its popular Wingle 3 truck. (Photo credit: www.21rv.com)

But even if the Chinese appear to be seduced by the American image of motorhome ownership, some American RV manufacturers are still wary of doing business in China, according to International Business Times.

Peter Orthwein, the CEO of America’s largest RV maker, Thor Industries Inc., said in an interview that there was still “too much uncertainty” in the China market for him to want to open up facilities there or enter into a joint venture with a Chinese company. Too many complex factors, such as regional Chinese laws against civilians towing vehicles, remain barriers to making a more significant investment, in Orthwein’s opinion.

“The market is growing, but a long ways away,” said Orthwein. Even if it were more developed, Orthwein asked, “Why do they need us?” Chinese companies could “copy the technology and do it themselves,” he says.

One U.S.-based RV maker has already suffered from exposure to China. In July 2010, California-based MVP RV Inc. was purchased by Chinese businessman Winston Chung. The company announced plans in January 2011 to build 30,000 vehicles for export to China, altogether worth some $5 billion. Chung originally bought the floundering company for $18.6 million, promising to invest another $310 million to expand their operations.

Chung was taken to court by a Chinese investor group called Fardar International, for forcing them out of the MVP deal and then using fake documents to claim full ownership of the company.

RV campground set up at Holiday Beach for forum on camping in Haikou, Hainan Province, China.

But many in the U.S. are not dissuaded. Forest River Inc., America’s second-largest RV maker, owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, has a $20 million joint-venture in China with the China Dragon Auto Group Ltd., a bus manufacturer. The two have already set up production facilities for RV manufacturing.

So this summer, as you’re heading out in your RV, consider that halfway around the world, a small but quickly growing population of Chinese is doing the same. And as Americans take their family vacations across majestic national parks and camp near the Rocky Mountains, an increasing number of Chinese will be setting up at the foothills of the Great Wall and in woodlands near the Yangtze River.